The bark is worse than the bite: New WTO law and late industrialization

In spite of (or because of?) the successful industrialization of leading latecomers under a set of institutions that had deviated from free-market norms, by the 1990s the global economic order had formed around rather orthodox neoliberal principles. At close examination, however, the new rules of the World Trade Organization, a symbol of neoliberalism, are flexible and allow countries to continue to promote their industries under the banner of promoting science and technology. The success formula of late industrialization-allocating subsidies in exchange for monitorable, result-oriented performance standards-is still condoned. The problems bedeviling latecomers today are not formal legal constraints but informal political pressures exerted by North Atlantic economies in favor of radical market opening. Latecomers lack a vision to guide them in responding to this pressure.